Come to me
by Radioheaded
Summary: Dean and Sam aren't hunters but normal, average men. Dean is floundering in his life, moving through the days with no real reason to look forward to the future. Little does he know, he's not so normal after all...Nephilim!verse.
1. Chapter 1

Dean's life is a stream of moments that can be strung together into a necklace of apathy, one that rests on his skin, brushing the hollow of this throat, choking like fingers wrapping around the arteries there. He is successful. He wants for nothing important, not food, nor company, or the love of what is left for his family. And yet there's something missing inside, a lack that's only digging deeper, hollowing him out as the years pour by, the unstoppable trickle of time that whispers in chilled tones that it's only a matter of moments, fleeting years until he's old, until he has to look back on his memories and see if anything has been worthwhile.

So far, the answer is no.

Dean is alone. He shares his bed by the night, though those encounters have thinned as of late. He can run his hands down the skin of others, lose his body to touch and taste and sensation, but his mind remains cold, reaching out for things unseen, for things he has yet to find. He knows the pleasure of men and women, fragility and strength but nothing satisfies anymore, nothing can stoke the flicker of flame inside that's a breath away from going out completely. But Dean's alright. He always is. How do you miss love when you've never had it, companionship when it's never been shared? Of course, he plays the game well, jokes and smiles and winks and charms everyone into believing the facade he's built, a shining tower of metal and glass that reflects back at whomever looks in.

But if there's one person who can look through to reality, can push past the shallow reflection to see the truth, it's Dean's brother, Sam, who sits across from him now, hand clasped lightly with that of his wife, Jess, who speaks easily in a lilting voice, the kind that exudes peace, that calms unconsciously. She's talking about her latest surgery, gesticulating with sharp, tight gestures. He can almost see the scalpel in her hands, the steady lines she cuts without blinking an eye.

"God, I'm sorry," she says, smacking her own head lightly, ruefully. "Here I am, going on and on. How have you been? How's work?"

"I'm an accountant, Jess," he says, allowing a slow smile to spread across his face. "It's pretty much always the same. Heart surgery, on the other hand..."

She just smiles back, bites her lip and chases a few peas absently with the prongs of her fork. "Sam found one of your old textbooks in the garage the other day. Best sleep aid I've ever tried." His brother grins wickedly in response, and Dean takes a sip of wine, comfortable in their closeness, the soft glow they almost exude for one another. At first he was jealous of their marriage, the vulnerability they share, but now he can only be happy for them, can only wish to find the same, though hope lessens with each day.

"Dean?" Sam asks, worry pulling at his lips.

"Oops. Daydreaming." He shrugs for Jess' sake, knowing Sam sees through him.

"Are you done? I'll clean up in a bit, but I wanted you to look at the car first; it's been making some strange noises." Sam doesn't lie often, but Dean recognizes this for what it is. His brother is just as adept as he at fixing cars. No, this is an excuse, a reason to pull him in and make sure he's alright. And he is. He thinks. He kisses Jess on the cheek as they leave the table and allow her to finish. He catches the concerned look she sends Sam, a wrinkled brow, questioning eyes, but says nothing.

They enter the garage together, Sam flicking on the light to reveal the sleek Audi Jess had insisted she and Sam buy. Dean shakes his head at the new car, its pretty curves and modern engineering. His own car, a classic Impala, or 'The Deathtrap,' as Jess calls it, sits in the driveway, waiting patiently for his departure.

"Sam, before you say anything," he starts, trying to diffuse the discussion before it begins. He aches inside, doesn't want to give in to talking about what he can't fix, no matter how hard he tries.

"Dean." Sam holds a hand up. "You can tell me you're ok until you're out of breath. But I _see_ you, man—you're walking around like a robot." Sam peers into Dean's eyes, jumping back and forth between the two, trying to look deeper, to reach for something Dean hasn't been able to touch in years. "Can you honestly tell me you're happy?"

"I—Sam," he doesn't know how to do this, to put how he feels into words. No one gets it anyway, and he learned from a young age that differences are just ways to be singled out, to be pulled apart by the savagery of the people around him. It had been a hard lesson at the age of five, when he'd been pulled into the principle's office and asked what, exactly, he meant when he told the teacher her color was pretty. He hadn't known better, had told them of the soft light surrounding everyone, the variance of shades and strength, the beauty of it all. A few CAT scans and psychiatric evaluations later, he understood that sharing was bad, that it only caused pain. He stopped seeing colors after that, though no one could find a reason for them in the first place.

So now he stands, mouth slack, trying to pull words together, to tell Sam that he's never been happy, that the only time he knows what it really means is when he catches his brother and Jess looking at one another, the quiet moments that go mostly unobserved.

"Yeah, Sammy," he finally says. "I'm lonely, but I'm ok. I've just been busy, haven't gotten a lot of sleep." He grasps his brother's shoulder, stiffens when he's pulled into a hug but relaxes into the grip, allows himself to sink in and breathe deeply though it almost hurts to do so, a reminder of how little he's touched for unselfish reasons, held with no expectation waiting for him to repay what he's been given. Dean's slapped on the back a few times to keep the moment from becoming too girly, and he's thankful he's been allowed to sidestep the truth. They let go, arms brushing and Dean knows he should go, should leave before the layers can be pried back, pale and sallow under the harsh light of day.

"It's getting late, Sammy," he says, and he's given a knowing look, a sad sort of resignation that sends his heart into his feet.

"Don't call me Sammy." It's halfhearted, something said because of tradition and history. Dean wants to apologize, to ask for forgiveness for being unreachable but there's a bridge between them with a gap in the middle, leaving them on either side, staring at the uncrossable space. He drives home with the radio off and the windows open, trailing fingers through the wind though it means to push his hand back, to force it down. The radio is off and it's quiet, just him and the night that still carries summer's last goodbyes, the spice of long days and sultry heat. He tastes it on his tongue, swallows it down and tries to save it, savor it because the wasteland of winter is coming, months that make it easy to forget anything but the white-cold of its icy grip.

_It would be impossible to be more uncomfortable,_ Dean thinks, looking down through the hole in the cushion that is currently smooshing his face. The masseuse's table leaves him feeling unguarded, makes the muscles in his back even tighter, the reason he's here in the first place. Apparently, his office had tired of him popping Tylenol like candy and wincing every time he was forced to stand. His doctor hadn't found anything, had told him it was stress, a psychosomatic reaction to his work environment. Dean thought his Doctor was using big words to say "Fuck if I know." So when a gift certificate had been obviously and anonymously taped to his computer, he decided it was worth a shot. But now, lying naked on a table in a sterile white room, unable to see the door and who's going to be working on him, he's having second thoughts. The twinges jerking his muscles, spasms that leave him restless and crabby tell him to stay where he is, dig in a little harder as he moves to at least rest on his elbows until his masseuse joins him.

"Hello," a voice says suddenly, breaking the crystalline silence of the room. Dean jerks slightly, but offers a muffled greeting in reply.

"I'm Castiel," says the obviously male voice, one that gets closer, until it's next to his head.

"Castiel?" Interesting name. Strange name. There's a laugh, light as bells, not the false 'oh, really, you think my name is odd' type, but a genuinely amused little chuckle.

"Hippies for parents," He explains, laying the pads of his fingers on Dean's left shoulder blade, a sharp-angled extrusion that creates a graceful line to his back, beauty of an unexpected sort on such a solid man. He's good-looking, he knows, big eyes of an unusually deep color, freckles like a little boy and the sturdy, easy-muscles of a man who takes care of himself, but even he doesn't know all the secrets his body holds, the wonders that can be found there.

"So you've been having some problems with your back?" Castiel runs his fingers, warm and just slightly slick, along Dean's spine, feeling out the vertebrae and muscles beneath.

"Yeah, it's been aching like nothing I've ever felt before. I didn't pull it—it just _hurts._ Feels like something's twisting around back there."

"Mm," the masseuse hums, drawing down lower now, so light it's sensual, sending sparks toward Dean's sex, a twitch that makes him grit his teeth and think of cold days, the tile of his bathroom floor after stepping out of a hot shower.

"You've got knots on knots," Castiel says, pressing down, thumbs digging in to rover over skin in small circles. A groan finds its way through Dean's teeth, so needy and wanton the hair on the back of his own neck stands up. It's ignored, though. _Thank God._ Castiel just keeps working, pressing hard, coaxing Dean's body into a relaxed jell-o, until he drifts away under the steady grip of someone who knows how to work his mind away. His dreams are thin, the shallows of water just before a deep sleep, chaotic images and words that don't make sense. A man with eyes deeper than the ocean holds his arms out, asking for him, just him, nothing more. He waits patiently in front of Dean, allowing him to make a choice, to streak forward into his own destiny. It's easy, though, because this man, this stranger smells like the light sweetness of spring, the heady electricity of attraction in blood, the push of pheromones that don't think but _want._ So he steps forward, allows himself to be folded into the arms of a man who feels like the love he had when his parents were alive but somehow deeper, purer, an acceptance that allows him to collapse, letting out the breath he's been holding his entire life.

The cushion underneath Dean's face is slightly wet when he comes back to himself; it matches the dampness on his cheeks. For a long moment he doesn't know where he is, what he's doing.

"It's ok," Castiel whispers, close to Dean's ear. The man's fingers are busy on his neck, running over the joints there. "I released a lot of tension today."

_No shit,_ Dean thinks, vaguely wishing he could wipe his eyes. Without warning, Castiel pulls away. He hears hands being wiped on a towel, sits up slowly, reveling in the lack of pain, the fluid movement that comes so easily. He feels _younger,_ somehow, as flexible as a rubber band.

"Wow," he mutters, glancing appreciatively at Castiel's back, taking in the long limbs, the firm, lithe build. "You're a miracle worker." Castiel turns around, a smile lighting his eyes as he gazes toward Dean.

"Nah," he says. "You just needed the right touch." And Dean would say something else, would have responded to Castiel's farewell, if he hadn't been shocked still at the sight of the man. At his eyes. The same eyes that gazed at him from his dream, holding him like a safety net, cradling him like the child he never got to be. He'd dreamt of the man without ever seeing his face.

But his chance is gone, and he sits alone in the room like the fool he is for a moment before gathering himself, collecting his thoughts and heading back to the changing room, where his briefcase and clothes wait patiently. Though, when he gets there, moves the neatly folded pile of his shirt and slacks, he finds that something has joined his belongings, something that most certainly isn't his. It's a note, a business card with a familiar name on it, a cell phone number and the scrawl of a few words that send his heart racing:

_I want to know you._

_ —Castiel _


	2. Chapter 2

Dean's home is comfortable, a two-bedroom apartment overlooking a river that snakes around the quiet city he calls home. The light is soft and the couches are comfortable, some material Jess helped him pick out, a dark grey that lightens under his fingers when he rubs them against the grain. He sits back into the large cushions now, stares ahead at nothing, digging bitten-down nails into pocket of his jeans where his phone is sheltered, waiting for him to make a move.

But the number he dials when he finally decides to make a call isn't that of Castiel's. His finger taps the keypad, a number memorized years ago, and waits as the purr of the ringer sounds in his ear.

"Hello?" Sam answers, sounding slightly distracted, a faraway gruffness in the undertones of his normally caramel voice, a smooth, even timbre that catches Dean off guard sometimes because of its similarity to their father.

"Hey, bad time?" He asks, biting at his bottom lip, drawing the flesh mound in to roll between his teeth. His nerves shout through his skin, edge into his voice and the quickening flow of his blood as it shushes through veins, flooding with adrenaline.

"Dean? Is everything alright?" Sam's attention is fully focused on him now, a trickle of worry entering the conversation, lurking over his younger brother's shoulder like an unwanted interloper that makes Dean's eyes roll. Is he really so pathetic that a single call can spark worry for his well-being? And yet, as his brother's concern sneaks into his heart, something inside whispers the truth, reminds him that he doesn't reach out, doesn't call or visit. He spins in the darkness of his own orbit, hoping to be left alone, regretful when he has to come back down to a place he's never felt comfortable in. He's letting himself slip away—why shouldn't Sam's first instinct be wavering unease? Sam is his blood, and the deterioration of their relationship thickens Dean's thoat, though he just clears it back and starts talking, the equivalent of slapping a band-air on a torn artery. But it's a start.

"I—I think I met someone, Sam." The light dusting of freckles across his cheeks stand out bright like cinnamon sprinkled on milk as a flush heats the skin, painting it red.

"Really? Where?" Sam tries to mask his words, to keep them casual, but can't hide the tangled mix of hope and happiness that ring loud and clear. For a second, a flash of gold-brow, the color of mountains in the desert flashes through Dean's head; it's the color of Sam, the hue that had burned bright around his brother when they were young, before the strange hallucinations had ceased and he'd been deemed normal again.

"Remember how my back was hurting me?" He doesn't let Sam answer, takes a breath and keeps going, smiling as he recounts the story, the soft touch, Castiel's shock of blue eyes and the whisper of his soothing voice, like mist rising from lips on a winter day. He tells his younger brother about the note, the strange and exciting words scrawled on the back.

"What do you think?" He asks, holding his breath before letting it go, berating himself for misplacing his penis and acting like a teenage girl.

"Do you like him?"

"I think so." _You _know_ so,_ Dean's mind harps.

"Dean," Sam chides. "I know you have a hard time letting people in, but it's me. And just because _I _know you're excited about this doesn't mean the whole world will think you're a failure if it doesn't work out."

"When did you get psychic, Sammy?"

"Psych minor, Dean. And you're not as hard to read as you think you are."

"Tool."

"But you love me." Sam's smiling; Dean can hear it. He shakes his head, sighs out frustration and nerves.

"So you think I should?"

"Yeah, I do. Have you ever clicked with someone like this before?"

Dean doesn't have to answer because they both know the answer. The question scrapes at the barren place he hides from the world, though, the pain over never finding what he doesn't know how to look for. It scares him, the idea that this could be _big,_ could be important—he doesn't know how to do this, to put himself out there, hanging by the strings of unfamiliar emotions on the hope and faith that he won't be cut down.

"And, hey," Sam continues. "Think of how good a masseuse will be in bed."

"Nice, Sammy. On that note, I've got to go."

"Call him, Dean. Promise me."

"Yeah," Dean mutters. "I promise."

As he hangs up the phone and stares at the screen until it goes black, he's glad they didn't specify _when_ he should call. He reasons that he should wait at least a day, shouldn't come off as overeager, make Castiel squirm a little for his bold move. Of course, it's all bullshit. Dean knows it as he strips down, leaving a trail of clothes behind as he heads to the bathroom to wash away the tension the masseuse had injected, the tightness that's gathered in the pit of his stomach, expectation and excitement and a strong jolt of lust that zings through him, awaking his body in a way he doesn't quite understand. He turns the water on, stretches toward the ceiling and groans with the ache of pleasantly sore muscles. He feels amazing, though part of his upper shoulder feels a little tender, thrums with an odd heated pulse when he reaches back to investigate. He arches into the mirror, strains to turn his neck in ways humans shouldn't and finally catches a glimpse of a fairly small, darkening bruise on his scapula, a long, thin line like someone took a paintbrush to the bone, deciding purple was his color. He frowns at it, unsure how a massage could have caused it, but shrugs it off, steps into the shower and tilts his face up to the spray, allowing it to move in sheets down his body, raining over skin that relaxes for it, heats up with a flush. He all but melts, plants his hands in front of him and lowers his head to allow the water's bliss to work its magic on his relieved back, sure he's never felt anything so good in his life.

The cool breath of morning is on Dean's face, curling around him, sharpening his freshly-conscious mind. He sips a cup of coffee on his balcony, waking up piece by piece, thankful for the weekend in front of him that's only just begun. Even so, people scuttle busily below him, unaware of his watchful eyes, absorbed in their own lives and the sidewalks under them or the beauty of the river as steam rises gracefully past its banks, the rush of the flow a calming white noise. The sun struggles past the grey clouds of undecided weather, the weak lemon light doing its best to cup his cheek, to whisper its last before Autumn comes and the world tilts away, leaving the star behind for six months.

He sits there until his coffee is all but a few grounds in the bottom of the cup, weak and cold. His phone rests on the end table nearest to the porch door, blank and accusatory.

"Fuck," he mutters, picking it up, wandering toward his room to find his wallet and Castiel's card. He dials the number, though he gets stuck in actually hitting send, completing the motion. _Come on, idiot. You can do this. _So he does, puts it to his ear and waits, sure his heart must be louder than the ringer as it sounds in his ear.

"Hello?" A voice answers, after what seems like days worth of rings. A few seconds later, Dean realizes that speaking is sort of required when talking on the phone

"Hey," he replies, about two octaves higher than normal. "This is Dean—you gave me your card?"

"Oh," Castiel says, drawing the syllable out. Dean can see it, the purse of the man's pale lips, the light of his eyes as they look into his own. "I'm glad you called."

"I'm glad you gave me your number," Dean says, calling back the suave charm he'd mastered over the years. "It was pretty forward, I have to say."

"Well," the words come slow, like sap from a tree. "Like I said, I want to know you."

"Dinner?" Dean says, mostly because Castiel's words have shotgunned his blood from his brain to his crotch, leaving no intelligence to speak of.

"Yes. Can I cook for you?"

Dean licks his lips, shudders a breath in and tries to let it out slowly, silently. "That sounds great," he says, then gives his address. They hang up and Dean sinks into the couch, lets his head loll back and laughs out loud so it echoes, ricocheting off the high ceiling to bounce back at him, a sound of surprise, happiness. It's unfamiliar, but slithers through him so sweetly he welcomes its intrusion. It's a feeling he could get used to.

The hours spent before Castiel's arrival are spent in a nervous flurry, cleaning, showering, grooming. The bruise on his back is an ugly brown now, and he must not have noticed its twin running down his other shoulder last night, though it's clear against the pallor of his skin now. But they don't hurt, not really, so he ignores them, turns away from his own reflection to wait for a face he'd prefer to stare into. When the other man does arrive, he carries groceries in his arms and a smile on stretched lips, slides past Dean when he's welcomed into the apartment. He unloads and they begin cooking, moving around one another easily, preparing pasta with a sweet basil sauce that happens to be one of Dean's favorites, one of the few things he can remember his mother cooking for him. They don't speak much but when their glances brush, overlapping like leaves carried into piles by the wind, Dean's struck by a strong tang of lust and something strange, a feeling like he's being looked _through,_ an examination he hopes to pass.

They sit down to eat, lapsing into a comfortable silence broken only by the occasional comment of how good the meal is. Dean sips at the wine Castiel's brought, liquid that's almost black under the low lighting of the setting sun. It blooms on his tongue, racing to be absorbed, to allow its cloying influence to take hold, to cloud his already hazed thoughts. Castiel himself is a drug, one Dean needs more of, needs _now_ because the way the man wipes his lips, the way his eyelashes spread on his cheekbones when he looks down at his plate twists Dean tight, a knot that begs to be untied by the other man's skilled fingers. But he just swallows, licking at the inside of his mouth for the remains of the wine that hides there, heavy, waiting. Castiel catches him staring over the rim of his wine glass, but doesn't look away, doesn't pretend he can't see the turmoil behind eyes that do their best to camouflage, to keep people out.

Dean lowers his glass.

"Why do you want to know me?" _What are you _doing_? _He's being shrieked at internally, ordered to change subjects, but he can't help himself, can't fight the need to _know. _It's just a question, but for Dean, it's the equivalent of standing naked on a busy city corner. He holds himself open, jumps blindly off a cliff and hopes for a soft landing.

"Because I can imagine wanting to wake up next to you for more than just a night."

The words are all Dean needs to get up, to pull Castiel from his chair and taste the man, press tight against his lips and explore his body; unfortunately as he moves to stand his back makes a grand protest, locking as he leans forward, throwing him off balance so he hurtles to the floor, an impact he braces for but never feels. He opens his eyes, sees that the other man's face is inches away but the sudden and intense pain curbs his romantic impulses.

"I'll get you to the couch," Castiel mutters, to himself more than Dean, who opens his mouth, to protest that he can't possibly be carried, but the other man lifts him like he's a child, carries him like a bride.

"I'm going to put you on your stomach," Castiel says, hitching him up carefully to get a better grip. "Can I take your shirt off?"

"Taking advantage of me when I can't move?" Dean jokes, though his own laughter sends a spike of fire down his back, making him wince at his own words.

"Something like that," Castiel chuckles, unbuttoning Dean's shirt, slipping it off his arms before arranging him on the couch, an overgrown rag doll.

"God," Castiel's hands on his back are heaven, pain killers and a shot of whiskey all in one. The silver hot grit flowing lazily up and down his back lessens immediately as his skin is kneaded, pressed down, rubbed. "I invite you for dinner and you end up going to work."

"This isn't work," Castiel murmurs as he presses down, hard, earning a pleasure pain groan that hisses between Dean's teeth. "This is what I've wanted to do all night." He pauses, huffs out a laugh. "Maybe minus your back going out, but hey. At least I get to molest you a bit."

"Cas?" The nickname comes without a second thought, slips out naturally.

"Mmm?"

"I want to know you too."

Cas' fingers pause for a moment, trail down to his hip to give a light squeeze before returning to his back, hands roaming over his shoulders and spine, drawing the pain away.

"Can you turn over for me?"

Dean finds that he can, though he's clumsy, afraid of hurting himself again. He stares at Cas, who looks back like he's the only other person on the planet, stays still for a moment before drawing two fingers down that diamond-cut jaw, brushing his thumb over the other man's thicker lower lip. It's slightly dry but soft, as is the mist of breath that alights on his skin before being carried away, dispersed into the air of the room. A light pull is all it takes for Cas to follow his lead, to lean down so they can press their lips together, so Cas can lick Dean's bottom lip before giving it a small nip, asking permission before he opens his lips. Dean welcomes the other man, licks into a mouth that tastes like the air before a storm and the bitter cherry of old-fashioned candy he had as a kid. Fingers run through his hair, pulling and dragging lines of electricity against his scalp. They find a pattern, a heated in and out that leaves him breathless, even as Cas pulls away, smirking. His mouth is kissed-red plump, a sight that sets Dean hard and straining in his jeans.

"Close your eyes," Cas orders. Without quite knowing why, Dean listens, relinquishing his sight to the darkness behind his lids. He waits for something, anything, but no contact comes.

"What are you—"

"Shhh, Dean. Just relax."

_Bossy,_ Dean thinks, though he can't hide his grin of mirth. He waits again, impatient, and then he feels it. Or, not quite. Because he's sure, absolutely _positive_ that something's happening. The sensation is light, feathers dragging on skin or right above. A trembling sort of expectation, like a pistol before it's shot gathers in the muscles of his back and around his heart and he's drowning in the air, lungs forgetting their purpose. Castiel moves, sends a wake of wind back over Dean and the build up discharges, lighting him up from the inside out, reaching for his fingers and toes, more intense than sex's momentary lapses into bliss, a true glimpse of leaving the body behind in favor of just _feeling,_ reaching out to everything around him. He opens his eyes, has to see Cas, has to know what's happening. But when his vision clears, when the other man comes into focus in front of him, he gasps, edging backward and away.

"Dean?" Cas holds his hands out, open. "What's wrong?"

But Dean can't tell him, can't explain the horror that slips down his throat, balling his stomach tight with fear. Because while Cas himself looks normal, the intense glow of a royal blue that hovers around him isn't. It's lighter where it touches the man's skin, darkest around the edges and brilliantly, wholly blue. Dean chokes back a sob at its beauty, even as it dampens, darkens with worry at Dean's fear.

"Come here, Dean," Cas says, moving closer. Dean doesn't say anything, but when the other man is a few inches away, he holds his hand out, drags it through the edges of the strong aura, the pads of his fingertips buzzing at the odd contact. It sends waves of peace through him, a calm that he somehow understands is part of Cas himself, the goodness in the man. The other man just stares at him, though his breath hitches as Dean continues to stroke the color. And then he's in Cas' arms, being held, rocked as air puffs onto his neck. He settles into the space between Cas' head and shoulder, closes his eyes, listens to the steady beat of Cas' heart and hopes that when he opens them again, the aura around the other man will have gone away.

_Crazy,_ he thinks. _I'm going crazy. _


	3. Chapter 3

Castiel grips Dean tight, runs long fingers like waves of the ocean up and down his still-stiff back, urging the tightness there out, replacing it with heavy relaxation, the burn that usually comes from an overzealous workout. Dean knows he should be mortified, knows he can't explain the strange mime-act he just pulled, but he can't help but sink into Castiel's chest, comforted by the steady beat of a heart that slows his own down. He tilts his head a bit, gazes up through his lashes as the other man looks down at Dean's lips before sliding back to his eyes. They stay still for a moment, wrapped in stasis, just peering into one another. Dean notices that Castiel's eyes aren't a single shade of blue but a bi-layered mix; a ring of navy wrapped around shades of ice, each he imagines looking into with the light of the midday sun. He's not sure he'd be able to look away, though it might be like staring into that molten star itself, sacrificing his own vision in the process, though what a way to leave sight behind. In any case, Castiel himself robs Dean of his patchwork colors when he allows his lashes to curve onto the tops of his cheekbones, when he bends just a bit and slants dry lips over Dean's own, sucking the flesh of the bottom lip between his own mouth, running his tongue and then teeth over, allowing the heat of blood to rush to the skin's surface before releasing it, kissing it with a muffled smooching noise before repeating the process with Dean's top lip.

The sensation ignites a powder-keg hiding in Dean's blood, has him pressing back eagerly, hungrily. But Castiel stills the raw, carnal drive in Dean, opens his eyes and backs off until they're thisclose to touching but not, staring as soft flesh comes together again. It's the kiss of a lover, the retracing of a familiar pattern without ever having forged it before. There's more to this than just lust, and the realization bolts through him, strong as a summer lightning storm, heavy-hanging clouds discharging with expectation.

_Shit,_ he thinks, scared to keep this up, to head down a path he's never seen before, but he knows what's left for hm if he lets this go—a lifetime of solitary detachment, the eventuality of loneliness' bitterness growing over him like a creeping plant until he's engulfed, unable to tear the shackles from his rooted body. So he kisses back in that soft, strange way, punctuated with silence and stares, each new slide of tongue and twist of lips drawing him in, closer to the light of another life, one that allows him to burn brighter for it. And if Castiel notices Dean's internal meltdown, he doesn't let on. The kiss ends when Dean takes a breath and blurts the first thing he can think of.

"What was that?" He whispers, though why he's unsure, as he is in his own home. "The thing you were doing when you weren't touching me?"

"It's called Reiki," Castiel says, loosening his grip around Dean, who tenses at the feel of the muscled arms contracting, pulling away. Castiel is a slight man, but it's obvious his strength lies in his upper body, in the rolling flex of long, slim limbs. "It's Japanese, a holistic practice I learned awhile back. Supposedly, through the person performing Reiki, a spiritual healing is spread, guided by the palms."

"Reiki," Dean mumbles. "Huh."

"I thought it couldn't hurt." Castiel grins, shoves a palm through his hair, flattening half of it. "It's strange, Dean—there's nothing wrong with your back; no muscle degeneration, no weakness. But you're obviously in pain."

The conversation is treading dangerous ground, heading into places where Dean doesn't go himself, let alone invite someone else. He lets out a nonspecific 'Mmm,' strokes at the skin of Castiel's thumb where it still rests on his own knee.

"Wanna move this back to the couch?" Castiel asks, eyes glittering with mischief. Dean's glad he's backed off the trail he had started upon, happy that he doesn't have to clam up, to throw up a wall because something tells him Castiel isn't one to be stopped by a few bricks. But for now, the bump in the road is avoided and they amble back onto the couch, folding into one another, legs touching, to pay no attention to the television in front of them. It bathes them in blue, the color blending evenly into the other man's still-visible aura. And while the hallucination should bother him, should scare him to death he feels oddly calm in its presence, the borders of it like a gentle hand on his cheek, rubbing away the worry and doubt that still lingers from his childhood trips to psychiatric wards and doctors that had made up their minds about him before giving him a chance to speak. The hours pass, bad reality television and movies of the week dotting a marathon kissing session that leaves Dean's mouth berry-ripe and red, flushed under Castiel's nimble lips.

"I want to stay," Castiel announces after awhile, though he speaks to the air in front of himself and doesn't look at Dean. "Which," he continues, standing, rubbing Dean's leg as he gets up from under it, "is why I should go."

"I'll walk you out," Dean jumps up, forgetting about his still-twinging back, more focused on the sudden tightness he feels in his chest over the thought of the other man's departure. His mouth is slick with the taste of shared sips of wine licked from one another's tongues and a deeper, woodsy taste of pure air and pine, one that he's sure is all Castiel. When they exchange one last shared breath with mouths pressed tight and open, Dean's heart hitches, tripping over itself before finding the right gear and shifting back into it smoothly. Castiel's hand lies just above the fumbling organ; it's a miracle the stutter isn't felt enough to make the other man jerk his palm back in surprise. But Castiel says nothing, smiles into their last kiss and then slips away, out the door and into the elevator. Dean sighs, leaning on the closed front door for support.

He wants to bask in the afterglow of an almost perfect date, one that could have gone haywire after almost jumping off the rails, but he needs to investigate, to find out if he's not just seeing one man's color. A short sprint to his balcony delivers the news, the kind that takes a moment to absorb, just long enough to make him feel like he's falling through the floor, gravity pushing down his heavy cells. Because, as he stares down at a well-lit street crowded with patrons walking to and from shops, into and out of restaurants, all he can see is the colors that surround them. None are exactly alike in shade or concentration, and each tells him something about the person around which the color shines. A woman of about thirty is smiling up at the man she's with, yet the sunny yellow of a would-be happy soul is faint, like the watered down color of the sun on an overcast day. Meanwhile, the man's intense red burns bright, almost like a thick canopy floating just around his edges. Bile rises in his throat, burning its way to his mouth where it sits, waiting for him to rush to the bathroom so it can splash against the white of the toilet. His pasta follows as he heaves, leaving nothing behind until all that comes up is acid. His body tries to purge itself of its insanity, though all it does is rob him of his consciousness. With failing muscles, Dean falls away from the toilet, curling into a loose ball on the cool black-checked tile.

The world he falls into looks like his Grandparent's cabin, a remote little cottage on a lake known for its bass in the summer months. The water murmurs to him as it laps at the banks of the lake, washing over the roots of trees that line its perimeter. The long lines of green reflect in the glassy black surface, a site he'd stared into for hours as a child, cheek cupped in his hand, list listening and looking. But now he's not alone, isn't sitting on the edge of the abyss with only his thoughts to occupy him. Through his lashes, if he looks just right, he can study the stranger next to him without actually turning his head. And though, after a quick scan, Dean finds that this person _looks_ like Cas, it can't be. There's something _other _about him, powerful and old with a kind of sturdiness that reminds him of the weeping willow he used to hind under when he was young, a safe veil of branches that swayed over him with the breeze, brushing against him every once in a while, like the hand of a mother rubbing circles into her baby's back.

"What's happening to me?"

"You're waking up," the being says, words like the sunrise; awe-inspiring in a way he doesn't quite get, musical though he's sure he's not hearing their entirety. Dean's being turned now, a hand gripping him tight, though not enough to cause pain. "Dean," the being says, too-blue eyes searching his, voice dropping low with urgency. "You have to give in to this. You can't fight, or it will drive you insane. You've waited too long already."

"Fight what?" The concern in this being's voice jars Dean, as if he's something precious about to be lost. But he can barely concentrate on the words pouring from the man's (if that's what it is) mouth, is lost in sound and sight. The man glows faintly so his features are secondary, impressions more than solid flesh, though the arms he grips at instinctively feel real, solid and _familiar, _somehow.

"You have such a strong mind;" Dean's shaking now, watching as cloudy shapes, translucent at first, begin to form behind the Castiel lookalike. They gather color, depth, and when at last Dean understands that he's staring at _wings,_ grey, silver-tipped wings, he finds that he can't look away, not even as he finds himself being pulled into a hug, so much like that first dream. "Don't let it trap you," the man says, breath nipping at the shell of his ear. He doesn't listen, can't, not when he's too busy reaching, flexing his arm up and back to just run his fingers through the feathers, to find out what impossibility feels like.

"Don't let it trap you," he's told again. "_Nephilm." _

Dean wakes with the unfamiliar word on his tongue, as well as the residue of all that he's thrown up. He picks himself up from the floor, brushes his teeth and collapses into bed, only to toss and turn before falling back to sleep come early morning. But his rest doesn't go unmolested, as Sam calls at 8 o'clock sharp, wondering where his basketball partner is. Dean arrives at the gym with a coffee in hand and his dream at the back of his mind—there, but hazy, as if he's looking at it through cellophane. And the more he digs for it, the further away it crawls, looking back over its shoulder to taunt him.

"Hey," Sam calls, rising from the bleachers where he'd been sitting. "Late night last night?" He smiles knowingly, obviously thinking back to Dean's past track record. Dean just scowls, mouth tight and eyes in slits.

"No," he says, tone as acidic as his coffee. "I'm not late because I was fucking my masseuse." When he sees Sam's eyes widen in surprise and then, maybe, a bit of hurt, he rolls his own and looks down. He'd explain to his brother why, exactly, he's so keyed up that the caffeine he clutches is mostly superfluous, but that would mean filling him in on the unchanged gold that's currently shining from his brother's skin, breathtaking and unreal as a goddamn acid trip.

"Sorry," he mutters, tilting his cup to his mouth, savoring the honey almond taste, closing his eyes against the light of his brother's somewhat dampened color. "I didn't sleep last night," he finishes lamely, "And not for a good reason."

"Ok," Sam says, shaking the sting of Dean's attack off. "Let's play."

If there's one thing Dean enjoys about Sam, it's his competitive streak. It's the one area where his feelings aren't taken into consideration, time his brother doesn't spend analyzing what's best for him. So, mostly, he gets his ass kicked. And it's ok, because it's real and genuine and he can take the self-satisfied put-downs Sam throws out. But, he is still human, and after three humiliating games, he figures enough is enough.

"Awww," Sam says, pulling Dean into a half hug, using his height and strength to keep him there, though he jerks like a fish to be let go, "Is little Deany upset?"

"Quit it, Gigantor," he orders, though only half-heartedly because the feel of his brother's color or aura or whatever the hell it is fills him up with concern and absolute love, the kind that's based on nothing, the kind that just _is. _

"Touchy-feely much, freak?" He growls, though he can't keep the laugh from his voice as he slides from Sam's grip and heads toward the locker room. He's already undressed by the time Sam catches up to him, stomping into the showers.

"You are wearing sandals, aren't you? Remember what happened last time—Christ, Dean!" The shock, the horror in Sam's tone is what makes Dean jerk around, gaping at the drain in Sam's color, the way the warm gold has weakened into a pale amber.

"What did you do, man?" Sam touches his back gently, as if the slightest pressure could tear him in half.

"Nothing, why?" Dean angles to look at himself, but all he manages to do is strain his eyes.

"This is why," Sam pulls him in front of the mirror, where Dean sees, after a moment of numb surprise, why, exactly, his brother is worried. The small bruises have spread, encompassing the entirety of his upper back, colors ranging from lilac to a dark black that looks downright malignant.

"Oh," Dean says, searching for an excuse. "It's gotta be from the deep tissue massage I had. It was the most excruciating thing I've ever experienced." He plays it off with a smile, with laughter that doesn't reach his eyes and he knows it. "Look," he says, moving on to try and placate Sam, "I'll call the spa and ask about it. It doesn't hurt though, I promise."

Sam nods, though his lips are pressed thin, a colorless tone against the tan of his face.

"Call now," he says, turning back toward the showers, leaving Dean near the lockers to dig out his phone. It's there, buried under his change of clothes. He holds it with shaking hands, scrolling through his outgoing calls list to find the number.

"Hello," a chipper voice answers on the second ring. "Valley Sun Spa, how can I help you?"

"Hey," Dean says, clearing his throat of its nerves. "I'm calling, um—I had an appointment with Castiel? And, I don't know I have some bruising from the massage and I wasn't sure if it was ok or not..."

"Castiel," the woman's voice hums. "Castiel." He can hear the frown in it, the name he knows, somehow, is unfamiliar in her mouth. "I'm sorry, sir, but we don't have anyone named Castiel here."

"Oh," Dean says, lowering the phone even as she continues to speak. "Oh."


	4. Chapter 4

"So?" Sam's voice is a cold douse of water, restarting synapses and setting off alarms in Dean's head, all of which read 'lie' in bright screaming letters.

"I'm going to see him again today to have it checked out," he hears himself saying, "But they said it probably wasn't anything major to worry about."

"As long as you don't just let this go," Sam admonishes, managing to sound like a parent speaking to a naughty child.

"Who's older here, Sammy?" Dean grins, flashing a smile sharp with sarcasm.

"Yeah, yeah," Sam mutters, fingers motioning like a mouth flapping open and closed. "You know," he drawls, raising an eyebrow, "You might want to shower at home, what with your Ebola of the back and all. You're gonna get this place quarantined."

Sam is kidding; Dean can see it the smile his brother bites back, but he can't help the angry little surge that streaks through his blood, stoking the suppressed frustration and confusion over what the hell is actually going on with the man he thought was normal. Maybe even perfect. _Castiel,_ his mind hums, turning the name over and inside out, wondering what, exactly, the motivation would be for impersonating a masseuse.

"Yeah, yeah," Dean finally answers, ignoring the concern that's now being leveled at him in epic proportions, Sam's dark eyes narrowing as the color that surrounds him pales, bleeds with streaks of sickly green that looks like worry. He tries to ignore the lightly pulsing color, the way it wraps around his brother like it belongs there, natural as steam rising from boiling water. But the intensity of it won't allow his attention to be disengaged, so much so that he has to ball his hands on his thighs to keep from reaching out to run fingers through the hazy gold. Sam reaches out to touch him, though, rests the warmth of his large hand on Dean's collar bone gingerly, and the wash of that strange, oddly familiar tingle bleeds into Dean's skin, carrying what can only be described as the _essence_ of his brother, a tangle of hopeful humor that makes his own lips twitch with mirth and a steady, bone-deep goodness that feels like stepping out of a hot shower to be enveloped by steam and the soft, shaggy fibers of an oversized towel. Dean sighs into the touch, ease blooming in his worried muscles, chasing away the fear that's busy turning his blood into acid, eating at him with every taken breath, though the relief is just for a second, gone as Sam backs away, headed toward the showers.

"Call me when you get home, alright?" He asks. Dean just nods, voice in knots, and watches his brother walk away, the muscles of his (normal) tensing with tight grip of the towel at his waist. Dean wipes away the fine layer of sweat that's gathered on his skin, wetting down the hair on his arms, collecting in the dip of his neck. He slips his t-shirt on and leaves the gym, mind whirring with possibilities and explanations for Castiel's lie. None of them are good.

The drive home should be uneventful. It's only twenty minutes, a straight shot on a main road Dean can usually speed on without having to worry too much about being pulled over. He grew up with most of the guys who are now cops; regular beers with them helps his lead foot. But today of all days, he finds himself sitting in a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam, the result of an accident on the highway that has detoured a steady stream of cars onto his normally quiet route. At first, it's not a big deal. He turns his music up to drown out the sound of a thousand idling motors, each humming in a different key. He leans his arm out the window, presses his head back into the seat and shifts the car into park, allowing the hot sun of mid-morning to lull him into a sleepy stasis, the kind that makes it hard to think about anything but the warm-water drowse as it laps at his skin. Castiel is nowhere near his thoughts now, and though every once in awhile he catches the sight of someone's color out of the corner of his eye, it's easy enough to push away, to pretend it doesn't exist. But what can't be snuffed out is a sudden and white-hot streaking of pain up and down his back, what feels like wires being pulled taught under the skin, ripping through and out, leaving only bloody ribbons behind.

Hot breath is forced out between gritted teeth, knuckles white on the wheel. Dean would scream, would work his lungs bloody but he can't move, can't think of even opening his mouth because even the air against him grates, sandpaper peeling back the tan of his flesh to reveal the vulnerable white beneath. He's a live wire, sparking with a electricity, the powerful crackle of a thousand short-circuiting synapses, all bent on delivering as much anguish as possible. His nails dig into the leather of the steering wheel now, silent sobs choking out haphazardly as he tries to breathe in at the same time, to pull air into a body that's forgotten how to use it. Something's twisting inside, thrashing violently; he's hanging onto consciousness by a chain with links that pull apart under his weight, loaded with the dead certainty that he's going to fall sooner than later.

When he thinks it can't get worse, when Dean is absolutely sure he's born the brunt of all he can bear, he's shifted, muscles sliding against each other to pull one another apart. Dean moans low in the back of his throat, the bleeding noise of an animal in its final ring of death, circling the last beat of a heart.

"Happening too soon," he hears, though the syllables slide over one another, losing sense before they can compute in his mind. But they keep going, a nice pattern of 'I know,' 'I'm so sorry,' and 'Hold on, Dean. Just hold on.' He tries. He really does. But then there's a press of something against his forehead, the lightest of touches, though even that induces scream-worthy aftershocks that roll straight through him to his back, binding the pain in tighter, closer. He gasps, but he's cut off halfway through, pushed under into a sort of blackness that's not quite a stage of unconsciousness, though the pain has been removed—still hovering on the periphery, though, as if he were looking through a pane of glass at it, a malignant black cloud just waiting to descend again.

_Diniel,_ a voice calls, though Dean's not quite sure he's _hearing _it because the syllables, as they unravel, stroke his cheek like the fingers of the wind in fall, a crispness that tastes clean, sharpens something to an ache inside, a dull thud that comes with the recognition of something's that been missing but only just noticed.

_You're running out of time, Diniel. Would you give up your mind to keep a hold of your normal life, even as it slips through your fingers? _

"Who are you?" He tries to ask the dark, though all it does is slide down his throat, filling him to weigh his body down, lethargy rushing toward him like a wave.

_It's not who I am, or even who you are, Diniel. _

"Who is Diniel?" Dean's voice is the ice of steel, a calm barely able to mask the fear and anger and confusion that's building in him, waiting to be released. But there's no answer, just the resounding break of his own voice in that vacuous blackness. He's alone there, waiting for someone, something, but nothing comes and no matter how he walks, crisscrossing in circles and sprints with hands held out, he doesn't find a wall, a perimeter, a way out. He's trapped.

What seems like hours later, Dean sits with his legs folded to his chest, arms wrapped around his knees, waiting for something, _anything,_to break him out of this darkness. But nothing happens.

Until something does.

At first, he dismisses it as a trick his eyes play upon him, a rising blue from seeing nothing but black, a ghost of color discharging from a malfunctioning synapse, impulses carried to the wrong places. But then it intensifies, rising like the morning sun but this is the formation of the sky, a halo of blue that seems to flood into his view, obscuring the dark and the unstable loneliness it carried. This is the blue of hope and a new day, second chances found at the last second. So without knowing quite what he's doing, Dean finds himself standing, running toward the color at full speed, certain without knowing how that it's safe, that it's a way out. And as he stretches toward it, as his fingers cross the threshold and bury themselves into the burst of light that feels like citrus on his tongue, the voice calls out to him again.

_Time to choose, Winchester. What will it be?_

He doesn't bother to answer, not as a flicker of heat skitters across his skin, an invitation that feels like warm arms opening just before a tight embrace. One last step pulls him away from the darkness and into a brightness that flares around him, the light so intense his eyes snap shut automatically and his hands cover them, shielding the nuclear-scale flash that builds and builds and then disappears entirely.

The fact that Dean wakes up on his own couch is a little alarming, considering he can't remember driving home. There are vague shapes and colors hovering over him, just out of reach, but they're quickly replaced by the cold, sobering waters of panic when he tries to stretch and realizes he can't move.

"Relax," a voice near his ear tells him, tones that send polarizing zings of comfort and then ire through him, though he can't turn his head, can't respond as he'd like to.

"I know you must be angry," Castiel continues, stepping into view, eyes luminous and contrite, hair too dark against his face. He looks beautiful, dangerous—and somehow, not quite human. He paces in front of Dean, his steps too liquid, to graceful; and there's something in the air around him, the heavy fog of expectation that comes right before a summer storm.

"And I'm sorry. I wish I could let you speak, but I'm holding back your pain right now, and any control I could give back would be excruciating to you." He bends, flows to his knees too quickly and runs the pads of his fingers down Dean's cheek. But he can't feel it, skin remaining unresponsive under the other man's touch.

"You can blink, Dean. Once for no, twice for yes, ok?"

Dean can only glare. His mind races, trying to figure out the paralytic Castiel must have used on him. But he's still breathing normally, can taste the breaths coming in, a function usually shut down by such drugs.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," Castiel's jaw is tight, the muscle clenching and unclenching, an unconscious tic that makes Dean look at him a little closer, draws his attention to the other man's color, the sudden darkening in the blue that looks like guilt and feels like pain.

_The color..._

Dean's eyes widen as he gapes at his answer, at the pressing realization of why it's important, why it's nagging at him like a dog scratching at the kitchen door to be let out. Castiel's color is the same as the man in his dream, the same as the one that rescued him today.

_What the fuck is going on?_ He can only wonder as the other man stares down at him, a sad sort of acceptance bleeding into the tender look in his eyes.

"You remember now?"

_Once for no, twice for yes? _He blinks twice and Castiel nods, moving his hand up to Dean's hair, stroking it before pulling the limb back and stepping away, standing up and rotating his shoulders before looking back down at Dean.

"I'm going to show you this, ok? And you can hate me or think I'm a freak, but please," the man's eyes darken, taking on a sheen that's covered by the lowering of his long lashes, "Please don't be afraid of me. I just want to help you through this, ok?"

Dean blinks again, and then he wishes he had a little control over his body because in the next moment, something incredible and impossible happens, something that makes him want to be able to speak or swear or shout, or at least gasp with surprise. It starts with noise, a rustling like wind slithering through trees in the fall, dry leaves whispering their distaste over being bothered. But then it gets louder, a swishing of silk that blooms into two distinct shapes that form over Castiel's back, shapes that quickly stretch into that of appendages that belong on birds, not melded into the backs of men. But there they are, huge and off-white silver, stretching out before they fold, settling loudly against the man's back, almost touching the ground behind his feet.

_Holy shit, _he thinks, eyes stretched comically wide now. _There's an angel in my living room. Can he fly? What does he have to do with me? _

"I have everything to do with you, Dean," Castiel says softly, his gaze back on the ground.

_You—you can read my mind?_

"I've never done it before. But I figure now that you've seen these," he gestures behind him, the wings rustling, like a child waving, "You wouldn't find it so hard to believe. Besides, we can actually talk this way."

_This—_Dean's heart picks up, hammering inside him, the one thing he can feel, the thump of a heart reacting to the adrenaline he's sure is being dumped into his blood, _This is what's happening to me._


	5. Chapter 5

Acting out of instinct, Dean tries to back up as Castiel pushes closer, tries to add space between them but his body isn't his right now, isn't listening to the impulses shooting violently up his spinal cord, urgent as rapid clicks of Morse code. He throws himself against the stiff reigns that hold him hostage, scratching at the walls of his own mind, trying to force his way back into control so he can end this nightmare.

_Shhhh, Dean_.Castiel's voice undulates inside him, the strong ring of a bell in a clear sky, the unexpected heat of the sun on an autumn day. It's a slick like black cherry, rich and a little dark and it makes Dean want to let go, makes him want to give himself over to the other man, but his fear keeps him sharp, suspicious, able to resist the draw.

_Let me go. If you care about me at all, you'll let me go._

Dean can almost _feel_ the flicker of doubt and regret that passes through Castiel; the other man's face pinches, all regret and urgency but then falls back into a quiet neutrality, a shroud to hide the truth behind.

"I'm sorry Dean," he hears, and then there's a quick flash of movement, one that's forgotten in the next instant because a tidal wave crashes over him, a suffocating blow that makes his body jerk and shake like a puppet attached to the careless hands of a child. His arms and legs twitch this way and that, sick, cartoonish movements he only vaguely feels as a purer, truer torture takes over, one that's centered on his back. It heaves with exertion, a stretching and snapping feeling that can only be his spine bending before breaking. The slow build of tension, the bend of bones in the wrong direction makes each beat of his heart a task barely worth doing; every second brings a new wave of hot-sick pain and a rise of bile in his throat.

_Help_ is all he can think, _God help please dying stop help_, patterns that ask for one thing, for the cessation of this burden, this punishment. Because it must be a punishment. Nothing good can come from feeling like a guitar string ripping away from its frets. His breaths come with licks of acid accompanying the air, stripping a throat that reverberates with moans, mewls as his chest rises and falls and he's not sure he can keep going because it's not worth it and maybe suffocating wouldn't be so bad, would make everything stop and that's all he wants, all he needs.

"I have to turn you over, Dean," Castiel says voice thick as old-fashioned oatmeal, heavy and so sorry, though he doesn't pay attention until he's being touched. The grip is light but it's worse than knives digging into his skin, though it only gets worse when he's laid onto his stomach, when his cheek touches the cool wood of the floor beneath him and the pressure moves to his back, where Castiel's hands rub up and down between his shoulders. All Dean knows next is that he's screaming with his entire body, muscles contracting, blood boiling, back arching like he's possessed, trying to get away from the other man's touch. But then he's pressed down, hips and arms restrained, leaving his head free to bang on the floor, pitiful sobs and gasps punctuating the dull thumps.

"Gotta tear your shirt." Castiel mumbles, mostly to himself. A second later Dean hears the scrunching noise of fabric tearing and finds a note of relief in it, the air of the room cool on his skin, the pressure of the shirt against his back gone.

_Dean,_ Castiel's voice is the shaky gravel of tears held back, a rushed heartbeat wrapped in desperation and it's reaching for him, pushing past the physical to echo in his core. _Please let me help you, please._ Dean imagines Castiel with clasped hands and begging eyes opened wide. _Just let me in._

Dean doesn't know how to do what Castiel's asking—how does he let go of something that's consuming him, cell by cell? But he knows he's clinging tightly to fear, to the anger of having been fooled, somehow.

_Help me,_ Dean thinks, and this time it's an invitation, a door held open to let Castiel pass through. Relief begins to drip through a part of him he can't explain,, warm droplets that feel like rain on a summer night, each trickle clearing a path through the torture—_crack an egg on your head, let the yolk dribble down..._the schoolyard chant comes back to him in his delirium, memories of giving others chills, the pebbled skin of goosebumps raised by light touches and the slight scrape of nails—until a dam bursts and ice seems to flow through him, soothing the misfiring nerves inundated with messages of pain. But he can't relax even as the worst of it is over, can't let it sneak up on him again because he's sure, so _sure_ that it's going to come back, that it's going to trap him again and tear his insides apart until he's gone completely. He's still whimpering, trembling, but he's so far gone that shame seems like an abstract concept, something that has nothing to do with him, not when he's been screwed into a vice and crushed only to come out on the other side, if just barely. His eyelids seem to weigh more than theater drapes, the thin skin drooping down to let his lashes brush his cheeks, insistent upon carting him off somewhere where the pain can't follow if it's still chasing him.

The hands on his back have other ideas in mind, though. Because now they're rubbing hard, pressing and kneading every taffy-limp muscle, spreading warmth that makes Dean hiss out air through his teeth, a compliment to the massage that seems to be..._coaxing_, ushering his body to react. Castiel's hands just dig deeper as he uses more of his strength. It's then that Dean notices the other man is straddling him, legs bent on either side, framing his waist.

"Good, Dean. Just breathe for me." Somehow, Castiel's words aren't patronizing. The inflection of his voice isn't that used to soothe a wild animal on the brink of a violent outburst; this is to keep him from tearing himself apart, from letting fear's shivered breath back in, carrying with it the heart-stopping pain he'd just been rescued from.

"S'happening?" Dean asks, even as his still-fresh epiphany fills in the blanks, pointing out the silver-soft hollow-boned limbs he can faintly hear now, rustling on either side of him, a gentle shushing that makes him think of his mother, the way she'd rub his back, so like the way Castiel is now, after he'd woken screaming from nightmares that felt more real than his own reality.

"They're coming out," he says, and Dean's thankful because Castiel doesn't say wings, maybe sort of gets that Dean's a heartbeat away from losing his shit completely, that a single word could push him over that crumbling edge. He grits his teeth, squeezes his eyes shut and feels the warmth of tears track down his face as he digs his teeth into his lip in an effort to keep silent, to muffle the scraping twist of his soul as it cracks within him. He's vulnerable as a newborn, powerless, a fact that digs deep into the quiet pride he's always carried in his capable body and agile mind because neither can help him now. He can't outrun this metamorphosis, can't outsmart it. He's stuck in its throes, bobbing in the waves of the change, just trying to keep his head above water long enough to survive. Questions build in him like a traffic jam, whys and hows and the stomach-dropping fact that nothing will ever be the same, that he's strange and different and maybe not even human. In the time it takes to hitch in a breath, Dean's life is reduced to a lie, thirty years of role-playing, of waiting for a truth he didn't even know existed.

But dwelling isn't an option, not when there's something new happening, a building, frenzied warmth, an electric charge that works its way through veins and cells and move down to the smallest parts of him, awakening dormant genes, shifting what is into what should be. Dean's back is twitching, feels like the first stretch after waking, pleasure streamed with the ache of sleep-stiffened muscles. There's a sick sound, like the crack of an egg only now it's combined with the snap of breaking skin and something heavy falls onto his back, plastering itself there warm and sticky and _wrong,_ and then it happens again and the sensation flares, sending him so high the blackness behind his closed eyes bursts with shapes and sparks of color, each the roll of something new through him, ecstasy and quickened breath after a kiss and waking up with the sun on his face, seconds of perfection where thought stops, problems fall away and nothing matters because all he can feel is hope. But highs don't last long, and though the aftertaste of it is still on his tongue, flooding his senses, Dean can't help but gather himself and step back down to the ground.

With strength he doesn't have, Dean reaches in front of him with shaking arms, looking to pull himself forward, to crawl to the bathroom door that's only a few feet away. His effort is hampered in that Castiel is still kneeling over him, his legs holding Dean's hips in place.

"Get off me." He tries for threatening, but his bare bones voice is barely a rasp. The things on his back shudder, half-adhered by whatever they're covered in. Their movement, the reminder that they're there at all makes a bloom of anger crack open inside Dean, jagged and insistent. It fuels him, helps his legs find enough purchase to kick and buck until he bears no burden. He half-drags himself to the bathroom, grips the cool porcelain of the sink there and pulls himself up with shaking arms onto legs that threaten to buckle under his weight. But when he does fall, it's not from weakness. He barely feels the impact as he smacks his new appendage (_wing,_a nasty little voice chimes) on the side of the tub before landing on it. Nothing can touch him, not now. Not after what he's just seen of himself.

His reflection, a reverse of his likeness trapped by a pane of glass, is that of a man in shock. His skin is pale and one side of his face is plastered with blood, the same liquid that coats the wings, the _wings_ that rise easily behind him, arching out above his head even when folded. They're huge, a steel sort of silver, maybe. He can't quite tell because of the blood that covers them, wetting them down so they stick in clumps, ragged-looking and rough. He can't stop looking at them, staring past his own face, the wide-blown pupils and the death mask of fear that grips his lips tight, thinning them into a line barely differentiated from the rest of his skin. The wings aren't heavy but awkward, pull him out at strange angles and knock off his balance, and when he sees them twitch again, looking like they're trying to get comfortable, to find an easier place against him and he _feels _it, the new sinews and tendons in his back adjusting, his world jumps its rails and he's losing grip, falling through air that's too thin to catch him.

Castiel's hands are on him before he even hears the man approach. He's sliding his fingers over the wing Dean fell on, pushing past feathers into down and skin and bone. Dean feels every touch, every tingle and drag that set his teeth on edge, desire beginning to burn down low.

"Get away from me," he pushes Castiel's hands away, cheeks burning. He's not getting off on this, not getting turned on by things that shouldn't fucking _exist._ "You're a monster," he spits, watching the concerned frown on Castiel's face bleed into hurt, a quick flash of surprise in eyes that soften again quickly. But it's there, and now Dean knows how to cut, where to stab. "And you've turned me into one too."

Castiel opens his mouth to protest, to try and fix this whole thing, but Dean's not ready to deal with it, with any of it. "Did I walk right into it? Did you have fun seducing me, turning me into a fucking freak?"

"I just want to help you," Castiel says, drawing closer, hands outstretched to take Dean into his arms. But Dean's done, and though he knows, somehow, that this isn't Castiel's fault, that he's burning his only bridge, he can't stop.

"I don't want your help. I want you to walk out of my door and never come back."

"Dean, I can't leave you like this," his eyes are wide with appeal, the need to make Dean use sense, to understand that he can't do this alone.

"Then you shouldn't have done this to me, huh?" There's no warmth left in him. His wings flutter again, moving forward to curl around his body, to hide him from the world but he beats them back savagely, ripping out clumps of blood-slicked feathers.

"Get out!" Panic is close but anger blinds it for the moment, a band-aid working to hold back a flood.

This time, Castiel listens.

Red circles the drain, dark-cherry colored water painted by Dean's blood, liquid that's running down the wings in rivulets, trickles of a life falling away—because his life is over, really. What kind of normalcy can he find when he's got—when he's not a person anymore? He scrubs the wing he's got stretched in front of him harder, swallowing the responding pain down. He wants to hurt, wants to tear the things apart, get them off of him; all they are is proof that his body isn't his own anymore. It's funny, though, that when he touches the new limbs gently, straightening the patterns of down and feathers, it doesn't feel like it did when Castiel touched them. It's pleasant, like hair being stroked, but nothing like the shock of lust-need that had taken hold of him under the other man's hands.

Castiel's face flashes in front of his eyes, the hurt in those drowning-pool eyes as he'd turned on his heel and left the apartment. It's getting harder to convince himself that this is all Castiel's fault, though he holds onto the assumption, keeps it close to his heart where it sits like ice, soaking in the warmth of his body in favor of a cold front, an impenetrable wall

When the water's lukewarm and the last of the red has trickled down the drain, Dean turns the shower off and steps out, toweling off his dripping body. The wings rustle behind him, and like a sneeze, he only knows what's coming a moment before it happens. They extend on their own, snapping open, knocking into either wall before shaking back and forth, the picture of a dog after it steps out of a lake. When it's over, he's soaked again, as is the rest of the bathroom, and the wings are folded against him again, neatly tucked like they'd never been out. Dean stares at his crumpled pants on the floor, the red-soaked waist of the denim.

_What would have happened if he hadn't have been here? _Something like his conscience asks, disappointment and guilt clinging to the thought. _Would you have survived? _He seems himself on the floor again, howling like a man possessed, twisting and turning in an attempt to stave off the insanity that comes with all-consuming pain. _You've sent away the only person who can help you, you ungrateful idiot. _

He's rescued from himself by a sharp knock on the door, one that has his heart in his throat, a name forming on his lips.

"Dean?" a voice calls, a voice that certainly isn't the light gravel of Castiel's own.

"Dean, let me in."

Sam. It's Sam.


	6. Chapter 6

The next sound Dean hears is the terrifying metal glide of a key finding its way into a lock, because of course he has a spare hidden in the most obvious place possible, taped to the top of the door frame. He's sure the tape must be gummy with age now, barely sticking to the wood for all the dust that's collected there since he moved in years ago.

Dean barely has time to think, to let loose an errant _Fuck_ before the door swings open and Sam's barreling through the entryway, eyes wide and searching, scanning the floors.

_He's looking for a body,_ Dean knows, somehow, an instinct that makes him speak up, makes him scrape the gravel from his throat so he can rustle a shadow of his voice, what's hasn't been lost to the power of his screams just a few hours ago.

"Sammy," he whispers as his brother rounds the corner, almost stumbling into him. But it's dark, so his brother stops short, squints at him in the darkness and his color, that warm amber, streaks crimson with confusion, one that matches his tone of voice when he calls Dean's name in the dark.

"Dean?" Sam's voice shakes, a tremor of black-tinged fear, the kind that shouldn't drip easily from the tones of a six-foot-three man who knows how to handle himself. But it does, and the oily trail of that fear permeates the hallway, hangs heavy on Dean's skin like a film of dust so he has to force himself to breathe, to draw air in even as it makes him gag on its way down. The wings twitch, rustling and stretching forward, extending at the tips, straining to make contact with Sam. Dean jerks, stumbling back a few steps, horrified. But he can all but _hear_ Sam's unease and it's calling to him, asking him to make it right, to make it better.

"Dean," Sam says again, but now it's punctuated with a scrabbling sound, the scratch of fingers against a wall, moving up and down, an audible search that's halted by a plastic flick, one that's followed a split second later by a flood of yellow light, the paltry glow of a low-watt bulb. But it's more than enough to display the change that's overtaken his body, the new additions that seem to have a will of their own. Even now, as Dean's eyes widen and he tries to retreat further, they're going against him, pushing forward as he pulls back.

"Sam," his own voice is husky, strained as his gaze slides to the floor, avoiding the horror he's sure must be twisting his brother's expression, pulling at pronounced lips, arching eyebrows down until they almost hide the hazel irises below. Dean waits for his brother to react, to shout sharp-angled words made to cut, to hurl acid on vulnerability he can't hide, a form his body can't deny. His muscles tense, readying themselves for the fallout of rejection, the label of 'monster' that's sure to be laid down. The wings flutter-shudder like a cold breeze had been swept over them, through them. They stop grasping forward, fall still before sweeping back, wrapping around his chest like Kevlar around his heart, protection cocooning around the exposure of flesh, and even more than that, his soul. Because he's laid bare now, secrets bleeding into the air like a wound that can't be staunched, privacy, _normalcy_ now forgotten things he flies by like the painted lines of a road, gunning ever forward.

"Dean," Sam says again, a dry-swallow chopping his name in half, an awkward human noise that has him snorting at his younger brother, even as he continues to try and form a functional sentence.

"Are—Dean, are those—"

"Wings, Sammy?" Dean interrupts, gaze jerking up to pinpoint Sam's reaction, to try to nail down the mottled tones of Sam's color, the veiled emotions in his eyes. "Looks like it, huh?"

"Oh, God," Sam's mouth stays slack as he takes the wings in, tracing their lines. Dean watches his brother's eyes tick back and forth, as he forgets himself and reaches out to touch, to brush his fingers through and make sure his mind isn't tricking him, that this isn't the result of chemicals going haywire. And then the feathers are twitching under Sam's palms, itching to open, to welcome. They slide open, now that they seem to know that there's no threat, spreading behind him. It feels like the nimble tingle of a hairdresser carding through wet locks about to be shorn, nothing more; what Cas evoked when he'd laid his hands on the wings was something older, something unnerving, powerful as a tornado's pull.

"Holy shit, Dean." Sam's collecting himself now, his body easing its way through the first part of shock, adrenaline cutting out of the blood even as it leaves the mind sharp, ready to examine every angle, to look at the problem until it's solved. But Dean's pretty certain there's no solving this, no easy way to explain spontaneous wing growth without being carted away and experimented on by lab-coat bedecked gawkers, proverbial kids a scientific candy store.

"Don't freak out, Sam," Dean knows it's a lot to ask, but he's in over his head and the waters of panic are rising, rushing to slip over his head and extinguish the last bit of control that still burns inside, the animal snarl of self-preservation that's barely holding him steady. But his brother doesn't let go, keeps his hand buried in the feathers and down of the wing he's gripping and just _stays,_ motionless, waiting for Dean to start, to try to explain what's happened. Sam burns bright, his stare no match for the sunset shock of gold hovering just above his skin, the outpouring of his soul as it spreads over Dean, protective, worried, but most of all amazed, somehow euphoric.

"It was just bruising at first," Dean starts, allowing the words to flow out, a trickle at first that begins to crack the foundation of doubt and denial he'd built so high inside, washing it away like sand.

"He said he just wanted to help me through it ," he gulps around the weight of the words, the way they chip at his teeth like a mouth full of gravel. Because he's not even talking to Sam anymore, doesn't blink when his eyes glaze over, unseeing. There's a picture held carefully in his mind of the man who should be there, who should be the one next to him, holding onto him.

"And I think I believe him."

"But you don't _know_ him, Dean." Sam's incredulity is thick like concrete as he pinches the bridge of his nose. "I mean, we don't even know what this..." Sam gestures awkwardly at the wings that have folded neatly behind Dean's back, loses his smooth stream of thought as he tries to duck around the elephant in the room. The whir of Sam's racing mind is almost audible, a circling shark working over the facts and figures. But this isn't a car accident, a 'his breaks failed, I couldn't swerve' retracing of events, a division of blame and guilt. This bends time and space and breaks every rule Dean knows—including, maybe, gravity. For a split second, he sees himself in the sky, the wings wide and free, balancing and banking easily, supporting him with ease legs will never know. They flex in response, a little jerk of aching muscles, tendons and tissue that weren't there yesterday.

"I do know, Sam." He drags his hands through his hair, over his forehead. "There's something in me that just _knows _he was just trying to help."

"But what if he put that there? What if it's just a result of what he did to you?"

"God, Sam!" He vaults up from the backwards chair he'd been straddling awkwardly, wicker seams leaving their intricate patterns of long lines and s curves in his arms. Sam's color flares, mimicking the quick wince that pulls his lips thin.

"You've always been a good judge of character, Dean." Sam assures quickly, trying to gloss over the implications he'd laid down, unconscious suspicions of Dean himself, whether the change had left him the same or if he'd been twisted by it, molded into something new, something darker. And then Sam's looking at him but _closer,_ head tilting, new light behind irises that have spots of blue and white in them, minute splatter-painting patterns Dean had never noticed before. Because he'd never been able to _see _ them before, especially not from across the room. His fingers busy themselves with rubbing the impressions on his skin away, a nice, human distraction that lets him hide from Sam's probing gaze and his own screaming mind. But he isn't allowed to drift away for long because Sam speaks again, says something that cuts through the beginnings of his meltdown.

"Colors."

It's only two syllables, an innocuous little word, but it manages to slice through Dean, tripping the breath he takes, making him choke on it.

"You remember. God, you were so little."

"I—pieces, Dean. But that was—can you still?"

"It came back a few days ago." Dean sags back into the chair, so _tired_ suddenly at admitting that there's more, that the wings aren't all. That his sight is getting too sharp, that he sees things, maybe the souls of people—and if that's true, what is he? But as he sits there, the world pressing down on his shoulders, making the wings droop to the floor, he remembers in a flash, a word that rolls over his tongue, past his lips so quietly Sam has to lean forward, has to ask Dean to repeat himself, though he doesn't bother, is too busy getting up to go to his desk and tap furiously at the keypad of his computer until it wakes up beneath the impatient jabbing. Opening the internet, he types a word into the search bar and holds his breath. He clicks on the first link because Wikipedia has yet to fail him, and reads silently until he feels Sam's breath on his shoulder, the echo of words moving out loud.

"When the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them... They were the heroes of old, men of renown."

"Nephilim," Dean says, finishing the thought, solidifying, naming himself as best he can. "I...heard it, in my dreams, I think."

"But that means that mom—"

"I'm not seeing another explanation, Sammy, unless you can rationalize why a perfectly normal human would grow wings and see auras, or whatever the fuck they are." Dean sighs as a flicker of curiosity alights over Sam's face before his expression smooths back into practiced neutrality. Who does he think he's fooling? If Dean could read people before, their tells are flashing lights now, red flags waving in the wind caught with no effort, no analysis needed.

"It's like a bronze-gold. It's nice, ok?" He watches his brother pretend not to care, though he can't help the pleased smile that ghosts over his lips, pulling them up slightly at the corners.

"Such a girl," he mumbles, though now he's smiling too because this feels normal, not forced, and for a split second he feels like maybe things could be ok. Maybe.

"Jerk," Sam shoots back, though the fact that he's now grinning so wide his face may be in danger of cracking undermines the insult somewhat. They lapse into silence together, turning back to the computer to read the rest. Sam turns back to the living room when he's finished but Dean catches his wrist, pulls him back before he can very far.

"Stay still for a second," he orders, releasing his grip on Sam's wrist, though he doesn't move away completely. "Just hold your hand out." Dean chews his bottom lip, dimpling indentations into the skin, though it doesn't hurt. Not like it should. He flicks the thought away, though, and takes a breath before he runs his hand over the Sam's color, dragging tapered fingers through the thick shine, the buzzing warmth it holds. It reacts like seaweed in water, pulsing away before drawing back, wrapping around his digits lightly, a static-cling tangle that tickles slightly. He's too busy toying with the strange light heat _feeling_ of it, the deep calm he's suddenly filled with, trails of trust and love and loyalty following close behind, to hear the stutter-gasp that gurgles from Sam's throat. He does manage to catch his brother as his knees give way, though, saving him from the unforgiving wood of the floor beneath.

"I think I understand," Sam says, face flushed, eying the wings, which have flinched out, flexing to keep Dean balanced.

"What are you talking about?" Dean's heart stomps inside his chest, guilt and anger at his own curiosity bubbling like bile. He'd experimented on his brother, hurt him without trying.

"No," Sam says firmly, seemingly reading his mind. "It—you're good, Dean. I haven't felt that—" His tongue snakes out to moisten his lips, eyes tracking up, to the right, looking for the words to try and communicate what's going on inside, what Dean's done to him. For him. "_Light,_" he decides. "I haven't felt that light since I was a kid. Since before mom died." He grabs Dean's arms harder, bracing himself against his brother, a half-embrace of a strange absolution, leaving the past to fold itself away neatly, to move forward into the future born anew. Dean feels it, the connection as it opens, the love of a brother stronger than most, strength stemming from the determination he'd had to stay, to raise Sam after their Dad's heart finally gave, when he finally followed their mother to wherever people go when they leave this world. Dean's touching his hair, snaking his hand around to pat a too-broad back. "Sammy, it's ok."

His brother clears his throat, gathers his too-long limbs and sniffles quickly before swiping a hand across his cheeks.

"This is so fucking big, Dean." Sam rubs his fingers together, smearing the tears into his skin until the salt's absorbed again, pushed back into cells, collected and replaced.

"I know." He shakes his head, lashes splaying against his cheeks, trying to find solace in the blackness behind his eyelids. "I know."

It's a good moment, a quiet one that neither will speak of again because it's too raw and open, like muscle and blood in open air; it doesn't belong, doesn't make sense to dwell on, and so the fact that Dean's stomach rumbles, or, as Sam says, "has a mini earthquake," might just be a blessing in disguise. Sam's sent to get food and groceries, since Dean's apartment is all but bare and he's pretty sure he's not going anywhere anytime soon.

But ten minutes or so after Sam leaves, Dean hears the door open again, footfalls echoing across the entryway.

"Hey," he says absently, gaze still trained on his laptop, scrolling pages of conflicting information. "Did you forget something?"

"Dean Winchester?" a voice asks, an unfamiliar drawl of silk and velvet, cocky confidence. His head snaps toward the sound, eyes more whites than iris as he stares at the unfamiliar man standing casually in his living room, hands curved through the belt loops of his jeans. He's not a large man, definitely shorter than Dean himself, but there's something electric about him, a powerful warning that screams 'do not fuck with me.'

"Who are you?" Dean stammers, the stupid wings snapping out, trying to spread into a threat, but all he knows is that they're evidence, that this stranger is now more dangerous than ever and oh, fuck, what if he has a camera?

"What are you doing in my house?" Dean growls, though the threat falls flat and he knows it.

"You don't know me," the stranger says, gold-brown eyes glinting under the soft light of the apartment. A familiar rustle sounds then, a raincoat glide that manifests itself in wings larger than Dean's own, the shade close to the man's eyes, tawny and almost hawk-like. He smiles at Dean's shock, an amused grin that is anything but full of mirth.

"But we need to talk."


	7. Chapter 7

As quickly as the man's enormous wings were revealed, an effective intimidation tactic, they're gone, slipping away into the ether, leaving a relatively normal-looking man behind though Dean can't help but see him as the moment in a storm just before thunder rocks through the sky, reminding the people below that their delusion of omnipotence is just that, a slippery illusion at best. The man's stature is small, unimpressive and inches shorter than Dean's own but there is no questioning who's really in control here, who has the upper hand in a situation he can't even begin to make sense of. The man watches him like he's something under a microscope, eyes never moving away, barely blinking. Dean tries not to twitch, but he feels himself begin to sweat under that bronze gaze, one that speaks of experiences and years beyond his reckoning. But with age comes wisdom, usually from seeing things that would turn the hardiest of people cold inside. And that, Dean thinks vaguely, is why this man is so intimidating—he _crackles _with life, a light that hasn't been snuffed out under the wheel of hardship and grief.

"It's easy," the man says, conversationally, taking a small step toward him. His eyes, Dean's sure, aren't just shining under the cheap bulbs of the overhead lamp—they're _glowing_. "To put them away. To walk around outside without looking like a freak." The man sharps his k, makes it pointy like the tips of icicles that grow on door frames, waiting for a slam hard enough to detach, to shatter against the ground like cold pieces of glass. They splinter in Dean's veins instead though, shards of sobering truth, a rush of embarrassment over how badly he's acted.

"I didn't mean to," Dean starts, looking everywhere but at the man, glancing at the glare on the television, at the dust slinging to the screen.

"But you did," is his reply, an interruption paired with sudden movement, a hand slipping into his and then there's a burst of emotion going off inside of him that's so strong he isn't sure he can be in one piece. Not when rejection's teeth clamp down on his throat, choking the air before digging in harder, injecting shame and almost uncontrollable desire to rip and tear at himself until nothing's left but ribbons of fabric laced with blood, until what he feels inside is outside and away from him because he can't bear its weight, how it makes him just want to run until he can't anymore, until he collapses and closes his eyes and they stay that way, unseeing. But then whatever's happening lets off and Dean finds himself on his knees, pressed into the man's shoulder, breaths coming ragged and thick like he's slurping milkshake air through a straw.

"What are you doing to me?" He gasps into the fucker's shirt, the taste of strawberry on his tongue as he inhales, sweet and light and entirely unexpected.

"What you did to him," he hears, the man's voice deep but softer now, bereft of the quaking anger that had burned quietly in his earlier words. "You fucked up, kid. And I can't say I blame you. But you need to open up those pretty eyes and figure out who's on your side before you burn your only bridge."

"It's so big," Dean mutters, stiffening when he feels fingers on his neck. But they only slide up to skim through his hair, drawing paths over his scalp, a calming, caring gesture that's like nails on a chalkboard—halting and strange, such a tender gesture after surfacing from such a total-body assault. "I'm so tired." His words slur into the man's coat.

"It's what happens when you're over a decade late for nephilim puberty." The man laughs harshly, the sound like a period to the end of a sentence. "And now imagine how Castiel feels, helping those like you over the years, people with minds too stubborn to let their bodies tell them the truth."

Dean shakes his head, or tries to, though he ends up just irritating his cheek against the slightly harsh fabric of the man's jacket. His jacket...

"How," Dean starts, but the words he tries to pull together scramble away, spiders skittering on long legs, moving just fast enough to slip through his shaky grasp. But it seems, as the man who's now pretty much holding him up starts to laugh, really laugh, that he doesn't actually need to speak aloud.

"I'm a bit of a different breed, Dean-o. You and Castiel? Halflings. I'm the real deal, non-diluted 100% angel." He shifts Dean a bit, so he can catch his gaze, can look into Dean's core with those lion's eyes and continues nonchalantly. "But you can call me Gabriel."

"G—Gabriel?" Though Dean's never been religious, he knows that name. He's in the arms of what might be Heaven's most powerful archangel, a no-one, a nothing little half-breed.

"Come on Dean," Gabriel stands and they're moving and Dean's got to be drunk tired because he's giggling over a 5'8'' man carrying his solid frame with such ease. He hasn't been lifted this easily since he was five years old in his father's arms, clinging tightly for some reason or another, breathing in the musk of a scent he knew as protection and safety and the best thing in the world. "Don't fall into the angsty teenage roll just yet."

He's being put down onto soft sheets, the unmade bed in his own dark room where the quiet hovers like a blanket he feels himself sink into, a perfection that pushes him farther down the path to sleep. The door closes behind him, softly, but he doesn't hear.

Dean wakes from dreamless sleep to the deep thrum of low voices passing through a wall, the bass of his brother's coffee thick tones like a hand shaking his shoulder, urging him up and into the world. He's not sure what time it is because he doesn't know when he fell asleep, but the cooking smells he notices are too heavy to be of breakfast. He's on his stomach, the wings stretched out, soft down and longer, tapered feathers acting like a built-in quilt, looking to keep him warm. The gesture seems strange, the thought that a part of him could be acting independently, trying to protect him. He frowns at them, and they shake once before folding up, curling against his back. But they brush his skin as they go, the touch silk light and almost nice. Before he knows what he's doing, exactly, Dean finds himself working muscles that react to a thought barely released from its synapse before it's obeyed, before the wings snap out again, sending him forward onto his arms with a quiet 'oof.'

He gets up, glad he's alone, and tries another silent command, one that feels like rotating his arms, moving them from his sides to point straight out in front, though his arms don't usually come with a wall of feathers that muffles the outside world almost completely. Either way, the wings stay still as he lifts his hand, drags it through the down, through softness that's faintly warm and just a bit slippery, though his fingers come back dry. It's the feel of legs moving between sheets, hands clasped on a windy day, the air slipping between pressed palms. It's strange and it's _real—_the sensations flow through the wings, up his back and then bloom in him. And for a second, alone in the dark, Dean thinks that maybe, _maybe_, this could be alright. That the heat comfort worming its way around his iced-over heart could be good. Because as much as this is all fucked up and strange, as much as it hurts to stand up straight and deal with the sudden and overwhelming torrent of pain that comes from abandoning the numbness he'd fallen into so long ago, the way the wings affect him now makes him think there might be good in all this, too.

When he leaves the bedroom, abandoning the comfort of the sleep-warmed sheets now strewn across the bed, he finds his brother chatting idly with the archangel Gabriel. Both have sweating beer bottles in their hands, though Sam all but chokes on the sip he's taking when he catches sight of Dean.

"Hey," he says, taking a few hurried steps forward until he's at his brother's side. Sam's color, Dean notices, is not streaked with fear, lined with terror. It's strong, vibrant where it brushes his skin, sending sparks of energy through his still foggy mind.

"Do you know who that is?" Dean nods at the other presence in the kitchen before sliding out of his brother's grasp.

"The wings made it sort of hard to forget," Sam says, pressing white teeth into a grin that reaches up toward his eyes, deepening the few crows-feet his years have given him.

"You're having a beer with Gabriel. _The _Gabriel."

"He was explaining things," Sam says, and though he's defensive, steps back and away from Dean, there's guilt there, a bit of shame.

"You come here," Dean closes the space between himself and the angel, too angry to care about who he's about to piss off, "And you do whatever it was that you did to me, and then explain all this shit to my _brother?_ Who the fuck do you think you are?"

"I think I'm the one who only gave you a _taste_ of what Castiel felt when you pushed him away after he saved your life, Winchester. I'm the one who's trying to help sort this out when, believe me, I have better things to be doing. So if I were _you,_ I'd be grateful," Gabriel's narrowed eyes hold Dean down, paralyzed where he stands. The angel seems bigger, greater somehow, filling the room with a straining tension that's seconds away from being discharged and taking out everything around him. "But if you can't do that, at least do us a favor and shut up, ok?"

And then Dean's body is his again and he's glaring daggers at the angel, though his thoughts are circling around something else, something strangely important. He doesn't notice Sam glancing back and for the between them, looking like he's watching a tennis game only he can see.

"But I don't get it—why would Cas feel so bad? Who am I to him?"

Gabriel rolls his eyes. An archangel is rolling his eyes at Dean Winchester.

"God, humility. There's a fine line, you know, between that and idiocy." Gabriel catches him by the arm and ushers him out of the kitchen, calling behind them to Sam. "Sorry, kid, but we've got to protect some trade secrets." To Dean, he just mutters under his breath, an afterthought that leaves the nephilim more puzzled than when the conversation started. "God, you're both idiots. I like you, Winchester, but thick-sculled doesn't begin to cover it."

Dean clutches a slip of paper, tucking it against the palm of his hand, protecting it from any errant winds or his own clumsiness. He can't take the chance of losing it, finding its crinkled face, adorned with barely-legible chicken scratch, gone. Because on it is an address, a destination he'd decided not to drive to because it would be too quick, wouldn't last long enough for him to get his head together a little bit before he gets there. So he takes to the streets, walking slowly, hands stuffed into the pockets of his long jacket, comfortable for the first time in days because of the darkness that drapes itself over all the hard edges, softening the world just a bit. His breath comes out as mist, dragon's breath that disperses as it rises, losing its color to the velvet dark sky. His back is tender but normal, and though he didn't say it aloud when he had the chance, he is grateful to Gabriel.

Tucking wings away, it turned out, was a lot like stretching in reverse. Gabriel was not what anyone would call a patient teacher, but Dean favored the angel's bluntness, the terse words spat between teeth because they were real, and usually right.

"It's hard to control your power when you're in the middle of denying its existence," he'd murmured tonelessly when Dean had sat down hard, sweat moistening his red face and aching back. Gabriel had leaned close, slid too-warm fingers over the joints where the wings met his back and pressed down, making the muscles beneath twitch and jerk.

"Not _the_ wings, Dean. Your wings. Now let's act like a big boy and get a hold of them, shall we?"

But they went on like that for what felt like hours, a circular exchange of insults and frustration, two brick walls standing parallel, waiting for the other to move. Finally, Gabriel walked away, muttering to himself. Dean, still on his knees on the floor, started when the wings—his wings—came down around him, slumping toward the floor. He was hot, tired and there was sweat dripping into his eyes, making it hard to see. That's why they started to water, why hot tracks tore down his face like a train speeding over rails. Returning footfalls were unexpected, made for a hasty wiping of eyes and face. He kept his gaze on the floor, waiting for Gabriel to tell him what a failure he is, how he can't be helped. Instead, a piece of paper was all but thrust in his face. He blinked a few times to bring it into focus, and it only said two things:

_Castiel _

_ 1394 Archway Drive_

It's not even a ten minute drive.

"How badly do you want to fix this Dean? How badly do you want an explanation?"

It was quick after that, a reverse stretch and burn that was sweeter than it was painful, rolling shoulders and skin reclaiming a human facade, a back that bore no strange marks, no distinctions for which it would be labeled other or different.

"God, have you figured it out yet?" Gabriel asked, still frustrated, though his eyes are shining.

It's funny, Dean thinks as he strolls through the dark. It almost feels strange without the weight of the wings, the light warmth they carried. Now his bare back feels almost vulnerable, open and waiting for someone to creep up behind him. But he pushes that thought away, folds his hand around the paper harder and smiles so hard he feels like his face might split. He's going to find Castiel. He's going to fix the poison he'd so carelessly spewed. Everything will be ok.

He approaches the mouth of an alleyway, barely notices its cavernous emptiness until he hears what sounds like feminine gasping—but not that derived from pleasure. This is a base sound, a scream because there's nothing else that can be done. It's giving in, a realization of powerlessness that comes just before death's last rattle. He's in the alley before he knows what he's doing, searching with eyes that fill with the darkness until they're blind for the origin of the screams. He turns, spins in a circle and sees nothing until a flash of yellow bursts into sight like a solar flare, two lights set eye-width apart, and they're getting closer.

"My, my, my," A voice like batteries in a food processor whisper, feigned surprise coating the words like oil. "Aren't we a little old for a newborn?"

Dean can't say anything, is rooted to the spot over the strange and sickening sense of deja-vu the eyes are giving him. Because that's what they are, eyes gleaming with a putrid yellow light, a monster lit up in the darkness.

"No matter," it continues, coming closer. "I'll enjoy you just the same."


	8. Chapter 8

Dean should be moving. He should be fighting, struggling under the grasp that's encircled his wrists, that's walked him backward into cold brick that catches his skin and hair, rubbing the former raw as he squirms against its surface. But he isn't do anything, isn't pushing back, is trapped under the weight of those eyes, the slick well of evil as it pours over his body, the thing's aura reaching out, expanding to encircle him, to eat him alive.

"Purity of an angel and the sins of a mortal," cold fingers crawl up his cheek, nails digging into the soft flesh as his jaw is held and jerked up harshly so his neck is bared. Lips touch down there, teeth nipping as the monster inhales deeply, taking what feels like Dean's essence with him. Revulsion and nausea roll through his churning stomach, sending bile up his throat to splash at his teeth. But all it does is burn as it slides over his tongue and he has to force it back down because it's blocking his airway and the world begins to sway in front of him, a roar building in his ears. The mouth leaves his skin, the air taking its place, cooling the left-behind saliva, a shock that raises the hair on his neck.

"Such a good mixture." The words are growled into his hair, a rough cheek pressed against his own. "Call me Azazel," he continues, the name curling around Dean's spine, electric-hot wires that tighten every second the thing's contact continues. "Believe me, you'll scream it later." The cold wet of the thing's tongue snakes out to curl over Dean's cheek, It's clear, then, like the light of morning as it drapes its insistent rays over thinly-veiled eyes that Dean isn't going to make it out of this alive. Not when the odorless breath of the man, carrying a cackle made only of malice, ghost over his lips and he breathes it in, the taste of grease leaving its imprint behind. Staring into the monster's yellow eyes, though, he feels strangely calm. Worry isn't far away, peers over his shoulder, leaving its prints behind as it grasps hard, but he can't feel it, can't be bothered by it. A film of what he thought was just darkness ripples against him, blackness that works its way down to his soul, a lack that might be worse than evil because it's just bare-empty, colder than winter's bone-breaking chill. The barrenness of the aura is like diamond-hard knives cutting into his own soul, a blade that slashes and tears until the warmth that fills him, his goodness and lightness is pouring out hot like blood, trickles draining into the black hole man.

"I bet you wish this was a dream," Azazel whispers, cat's-tongue rough, voice a whisper but deafening, soul-shaking in its innate _wrongness_, the way Dean's stomach curls and twists as more taunts are poured over him.

"Are you begging yourself to wake up yet, nephilim? Praying to God, asking for his help?"

_ I have a secret for you,_ the thing continues, but now he's inside Dean's head, a shriek of acid-tipped teeth snagging at his thoughts, the soft, vulnerable parts of himself he doesn't show anyone. And now they're laid bare, open and waiting for Azazel to play with as he may. _God doesn't care, if he exists at all. I'm your God now. _

Laughter echoes through Dean as he finds himself slipping, not falling, but moving in a way he's never before, a unnatural, unsettling shift that pulls behind his navel first before spreading through his blood and muscles, rippling cold through and then he's falling downward through what feels like spider webs, light and sticky, a mist that huddles around him and makes his skin crawl, awakens an instinctive drive to clean himself off, to jerk and twist until whatever is on him slides away. But he can't move, isn't even sure he's breathing because there's nothing, no one except Azazel, though Dean doesn't know he senses the thing's presence; he sure as hell can't _see _the monster. And then it all stops and they're in a basement, that unmistakable dank smell in Dean's nose, the half-wet cool of mold rushing at him with each heavy breath he takes. His heart's marathoning in his chest, trying to outrun Azazel maybe, gasping and stuttering forward, looking to stay a step ahead.

_Sorry,_ the monster says in his head, saccharine sweet. _Moving in and out of existence is always a little uncomfortable the first time. _He appears in front of Dean and a light flashes on, illuminating the face of a man, the shell of a human being with a sharp jaw, light stubble and similar colored hair. But Dean knows different, knows better. The thing in front of him is nothing, no one. The humanity it displays is a front, a visage, and nothing more. He's not sure of exactly what Azazel is, but he knows what it isn't. It leans forward, thin lips twisting into a leer, the yellow eyes shining, a glint that makes Dean swallow hard., though his throat has gone dryer than the Sahara, sand gritting under his teeth.

"Oh," Azazel says aloud, pressing closer, resting his chin on Dean's forehead. "Do keep that up. Your fear tastes _amazing._" Then he sighs, breathes out air that rustles through Dean's hair and pushes back. "But I can't go wasting you all at once." Fingers with nails just a bit too long land on his neck. "Be a dear and go to sleep for me, hmm?"

Even in what Dean assumes to be dreams, he finds no rest. Everything moves quickly and he's stumbling, heaving forward with an almost-drunk swimming mind, unable to place anything or anyone around him. He's surrounded, stiff-shouldered people on all sides, a crowd that refuses to part, that he forces himself through, sure something's waiting on the other side. The bodies are like brick, unyielding limbs that slow him down as he pinballs through, searching for a reason to keep going because he's getting so tired, so confused and not entirely sure if he can stand for much longer. The blocked-out horizon, hazed over by the details of the swarm Dean's trapped by (brunette in a black dress, old man in a suit, all dead eyes and faces) spins and tilts, trying to force him under, away. And it's easy, really, to let go, much easier than fighting, but it's what Dean does best, first for Sam after their Dad died, then for himself when no one thought he would go anywhere, that Sam was the brains and he was just the odd-jobs brawn, keeping the smarter half afloat so he could go out into the world and do big things. Darwinism, don't you know.

And just at the last second, when it feels like the light within him is about to go out, hands grip him by the elbows, hauling him up gently, somehow, allowing him to sag into a sturdy chest.

_Dean,_ he hears, and it's a balm inside him, that morning blue that goes to work immediately, working to sooth what's been roughened by the sandpaper mind of his captor. _Dean what's happening? Where are you? _

_ Sorry Cas, _he mumbles, voice slurred even in his dreams. _Went to find you...thing, Azazel...so sorry Cas, meant to say sorry. _

_ Dean,_ Cas' voice pitches high, desperate, almost frenzied. _It doesn't matter, it's ok, ok? Just please help me now, can you do that? _

_ Yes, _Dean wants to say, but it dies as a gurgle in his throat. Something's pulling, grabbing him from deep inside, tearing him away piece by piece.

_Dean! _It's a bit far away, like the murmur of talk through soft music or voices behind a wall. _Dean you have to let me in now, ok? Please just let me in._

Dean wishes he knew what Cas meant, what he wanted. But he smiles at the thought of the other nephilim, the intensity of eyes locked on his, blue piercing green and staying, leaving a part of himself in Dean to carry. Because that's what Cas did, as he helped Dean's nature emerge; he left himself behind, a fingerprint on his soul. He smiles, thinking about what it would have been like, what exploring Cas, all the spaces people keep hidden from the rest of the world would have been like. He imagines lightness, the absence of bodies or cares, escaping into one another until time falls away and all that's left is them.

_That's it Dean, just a little more!_

_Cas..._Dean sees sunrises, feels the brush of summer wind and all he can smell in the tingling combination of mint and body heat-warmed cologne. _Think I could love you,_ he cracks open an eye and sees a field, open spaces that blend into the sky, no roads, no civilization to be seen. No swarming crowd, no human barricade. And there Cas is, kneeling over Dean, hands jerking out to pull him up, to support him.

_Not goodbye Dean, not goodbye. _

But it is. Because all it takes is a blink, _closeopen_ and the dream fades away like steam off cooling food. His eyes stick, lashes clinging to one another as he opens them and finds himself back in that dark basement with the film of dust and grease layered over his tongue.

"Wakey wakey, sleeping beauty." The fake playfulness is gone from the monster's voice, replaced with the fractures of sharp-edged glass. "Trying to escape, are we?" He breathes, touching Dean's cheek lightly before backhanding him, a searing heat that most certainly leaves a hand print behind, a calling card of raised, stinging skin.

"What?" Dean's head lolls on his neck, coming back around just enough for him to squint through cloudy eyes, trying to bring Azazel back into focus.

"Playing dumb, nephil?" he hisses before hitching his leg up, moving forward so he's straddling Dean, their chest pressed together. His heart pounds, echoes into the empty cavern of Azazel's ribs, bones that obviously protect nothing. "Doesn't matter," he says into Dean's shoulder. "You don't have long, anyway."

The next thing Dean feels is hot breath on his neck, an exhale before a deep inhale that sends a wave of drowsiness over him, the kind of full-bodied exhaustion that comes after an orgasm, fatigue that pulls at eyelids and tries to make the mind forget about sticky bodies. His head jerks down but Azazel's hands catch his chin, hold it steady, and then the monster's lips are almost touching his, eyes wide and sickly-gold, nothing like the beauty, the purity he'd seen in Gabriel.

_Gabriel. Hope he takes care of Cas. _

Azazel's breathing hard.

_Taking,_ Dean notes. Taking everything, leaving nothing behind. Death isn't as bad as he thought it would be, not when it comes to Azazel. Dean had imagined knives and torture, slow peels and deep cuts, the black sheen blood takes when it pours from an almost-empty body, veins with nothing left to give. But this is easy, and there's light now, shining behind his eyes, coming stronger now so he can barely see.

Azazel pauses, digs his nails in to leave half-moon indents, another signature.

"Don't worry," he whispers into Dean's mouth. "The blood will come later, after I take it."

Dean wonders, idly, what _it_ is, exactly, but there isn't time.

"You're not taking anything," he hears, but it's not Azazel, couldn't be. This new voice is the softness of caramel as it's melted down, the smoothness of coffee prepared by someone who actually knows what they're doing. The light dies as fast as it came, but the voice does something to him, makes his wings snap out, fighting with the ropes he hadn't noticed he was bound with. The twist and writhe, burning with each small shudder.

"Help him, Cas," the voice says.

"Aw, Gabriel," Azazel, sounding even more gruff, more of a taint in the presence of such unbearable purity, mocks. "What do you want with the little Nephil? And what makes you think you'll take him?"

"Come Dean," a voice says in his ear, an auditory feel of choking sobs and tightness in his chest, relief as powerful as an ocean in the midst of a hurricane. Rightness seeps through him like hot soup on a bitter January day when hands touch the ropes and the disintegrate, sand dribbling down his clothing. "You don't need to see this."

And then they melt away, but it doesn't feel like nails screeching across a chalkboard, isn't the tailspin trip Azazel took him on. This is a flutter of wind through his hair, standing at the top of a mountain and looking at the world below, letting its joy fill you until there's no room left, until all that's left is the crackle of electricity burning hot like fireworks through veins. Something curls around him, soft and perfect, a mother's caress and a lover's embrace, and Dean knows he might be crying, might be letting wetness leak from his eyes but he's not quite corporeal at the moment and is too far gone to care.

"Azazel took a lot, Cas," is the first thing Dean hears when he comes to, and though he feels like he's been hit by a meteor, ground into nothingness and rebuilt, he knows he's solid, knows he'll make it.

"He'll come back to me, Gabriel," Cas says, and then makes a noise like he's going to continue, but doesn't. Instead, he appears in Dean's line of sight, blurry, like he's gazing through water, but the other nephilim is there. Is real.

"Cas," Dean sighs, his voice a scrape in the back of his throat. He's shushed, looks into eyes burning bright, not tearing but just so _alive_ that he loses his breath, reaches a trembling hand up to make contact because the yearning in the other man's eyes doesn't leave him any other options.

"Lay with me," he says, and Cas does. Their bodies settle together like they belong that way, long lines and slim muscle adjusting without effort. Sleep comes even easier.

Upon waking, Dean is panicked, shoving at blankets that have become a prison, have trapped him back in his cell waiting to be devoured.

"Dean," a soft voice next to him calls, and he turns, looks into eyes a split seconds before soft lips touch his own, before he's grounded by Cas' body. Because that's who has him, who protects him, whose essence he can feel now, coiled inside, twined with every cell he has.

"Azazel," he says, no inflection in the name.

"A demon," Cas says, a simple identification, but there's something more, something deeper. Dean can _feel _it. And Cas knows it.

"Nephilim are usually helped with their transition by their fathers," Cas says slowly, sooty lashes shielding his eyes, locking his soul away from Dean. "Your father, Dean, was killed by a demon. By Azazel. It's why you never changed, why you were stuck."

Dean nods, but he can't _feel_ anything. He had a father, a human father whose imperfections might have been numerous, but he'd been blood and love and support when it meant the most.

"Is that what you do?" He whispers into Cas' lips, curling his tongue just a bit, edging it out to lick at the corner of the other man's mouth, reveling in the mint found there. "Wake us up, find the orphans and late bloomers?" He keeps his voice light, but he needs to know if he's just been a job, if he was a task to be carried out.

"Everyone deserves a chance," Cas says, a side-step explanation. But his tongue parts Dean's lips, licks into the younger Nephilim's mouth teasingly. "But you were not a duty, Dean. You were pleasure, my pleasure, my happiness. The only..." Dean hears Cas swallow hard, like he's building to something, trying to convince himself to go through with it. "The only love I've ever known."

Love. The only love.

"Love," he repeats. "Only love, Cas." Without warning, his wings unfold again, stiff and aching but seemingly intact. He moans at their sudden appearance.

"What is this," he growls, though there's more than a bit of a playful edge in his words, "An angelic boner?"

When Cas doesn't answer, Dean knows he's accidentally struck the truth, hard. So to speak.

"Fuck," he moans, snatching his hands from the sheets to cover his eyes before falling back into Cas, reaching for his collar, snagging the fabric and kissing him like it's the end of the world, mouths moving to make up for the time they've lost, for the innocence that's been taken from Dean. Because he's not ok and he knows it, but he can't go there now, can't stare what's happened in the face, not so soon. Not when his soul is being rebuilt by a searing kiss that makes him feel more solid, like he's still alive.

"Jesus, guys!" He hears, and then Gabriel's mock-disgusted face comes into view, toffee eyes light with mirth. "Keep it in your pants for five minutes. You're the walking wounded, Dean."

"Yeah, yeah," he mutters as Gabriel winks and begins to retreat. "Wait, Gabriel," he calls, watching as the archangel turns, peers over his shoulder. "Did you kill the fucker?"

A grin spreads across Gabriel's lips, thinning them into a velvet red line. His eyes flicker with something old and powerful and maybe a bit wrathful, revealing a being that isn't entirely harps and calm meditation.

"Yeah, Dean. And I made sure he felt it." Gabriel leaves then, disappearing with a chorus of wings, the shuffle of birds easing into the air, much to the jealousy of humans. Dean just smiles, and maybe he shouldn't feel just a little better, but he does.

"Dean," Cas says, pulling him back into the present, into awe-filled expressions and the burst of unexpected love, unfamiliar emotion as it breaks the dam he'd constructed so long ago.

"I want to..."

"Are you trying to ask for sex, Cas?" he jokes, though catches a laugh as it tries to tumble from his lips when he notices the other man's suddenly serious expression.

"I want to show you how nephilim love, Dean," Cas all but whispers, looking at everything but him. Dean doesn't say anything, doesn't have to, but his eyes widen and he just kisses the other man again, hungry this time, fierce and claiming.

_Shh,_ Cas says into his mind, easing Dean onto his back. He goes still for a moment, just straddling Dean, staring down at him. But then his eyes are too bright, gleam with an inhuman light that seems to spread over the other man's entire body. He's shining, fucking _shining_, like a 100 watt bulb, skin lit up with an ethereal glow. He reaches for Dean's wrist, circles it gently and then the light _spreads,_ moves up Dean's fingers and down his arm. He traces its progress, mouth open, as his heart speeds up and pleasure unfurls within him, heating his blood, pouring a frenzied need through him. What happens next makes no sense but doesn't need to; he's slipping past his body, mingling with a mist of pulsing heat_light_perfection, barely notices that Cas has collapsed on top of his tangible self. He wraps himself around Cas, around his essence.

_Grace,_ the other man corrects, laughter like quiet bells ringing through Dean, sending shivers down a spine he doesn't quite possess.

_Grace,_ he repeats, twisting and threading himself until they can't be told apart, until they're just life and all its good moments, until waves of Cas are cresting inside of him, pulling and shaping the most intense ecstasy he's ever experienced. This isn't sex, this is _mating,_ bonding in the deepest way possible, looking into and through another person, seeing every fault and crack and staying, accepting, embracing. He's laughing and crying and feeding Cas moments of his life, saving the best, the other nephilim's kiss, for last, for when he can't hold on anymore, for when he loses himself to the atmosphere, spreading out until he's touching everything, a part of everyone.

Dean hears his heart first when he comes back to himself. But more importantly, he feels Cas', the steady tattoo that echoes his own, skin on skin. A connection he almost lost, that took him forever to find.


End file.
